The Dumbing Of America
"The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself." Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837, but his words echo with painful prescience in today's very different United States. Americans are in serious intellectual trouble -- in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.This is the last subject that any candidate would dare raise on the long and winding road to the White House. It is almost impossible to talk about the manner in which public ignorance contributes to grave national problems without being labeled an "elitist," one of the most powerful pejoratives that can be applied to anyone aspiring to high office. Instead, our politicians repeatedly assure Americans that they are just "folks," a patronizing term that you will search for in vain in important presidential speeches before 1980. (Just imagine: "We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain . . . and that government of the folks, by the folks, for the folks, shall not perish from the earth.") Such exaltations of ordinariness are among the distinguishing traits of anti-intellectualism in any era.
The classic work on this subject by Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," was published in early 1963, between the anti-communist crusades of the McCarthy era and the social convulsions of the late 1960s. Hofstadter saw American anti-intellectualism as a basically cyclical phenomenon that often manifested itself as the dark side of the country's democratic impulses in religion and education. But today's brand of anti-intellectualism is less a cycle than a flood. If Hofstadter (who died of leukemia in 1970 at age 54) had lived long enough to write a modern-day sequel, he would have found that our era of 24/7 infotainment has outstripped his most apocalyptic predictions about the future of American culture.
Susan Jacoby is the author of The Age of American UnReason
Comments
And your Rock and Roll is toooo loud!
Susan has some very good points in here, but the fact that her story starts with an Emerson quote is telling.
People have been predicting the intellectual devolution of our society for some time. Long enough, that we should have the minds of jelly fish if their worst fears were true.
Since FDR litereacy and education level have gone up and now with the internet, rather then just absorbing the tripe from papers and the evening news , average people are active participants in a public debate. Attention span is down and certainly there is an anti-elitist sentiment that is little more then name calling.
On the other hand, every Cable news outlet carried a 44 minute obama speech the other night, and they have done that repeatedly on most every election night. 50 years ago folks would have been luck you see one or two speeches.
Where's the video? You can't possibly expect me to read all of those words.
Where's the video? You can't possibly expect me to read all of those words.
Here is Susan Jacoby with Bill Moyers:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02152008/watch2.html
And that is why people voted for Bush.
And this comment on a dumbing-down-of-America post"..
Well, apparently, not all French people are all that informed either
Oh, I'm sorry! I realize now that you said this tongue in cheek! lol
There's another book on this subject: "Dumbth" by Steve Allen. It came out wither in the early 90's or late late 80's. It's good food for thought, and good remedies for the trend.
I think it was Obama that said something like "It's not just what you don't know. It's what you don't know that you THINK you know." in reference to who he'd consider (and how they'd contribute) as members of his cabinet if elected.
I'm glad you got the joke, JoAnn; I think I should put a :) after my jokes from now on :)
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I just don't believe that. Few people have a lower opinion of my fellow Americans than I do, but stats like this... there has to be some over-simplification or some rounding up going on to get this. You will NEVER be able to gather together 20 different people and surprise 4 of them by saying the Earth revolves around the sun. People are amazingly stupid, and I'm sure a lot of them don't know this, but 20%? Come on.
I've been skeptical of "polls" like this for a long time. With this year's primary circus, I think I can now feel comfortable with those doubts.
Although, like thaddeusphoenix says, that 20% number IS pretty close to Bush's approval rating. LOL.
Polls are still pretty accurate, its the reporting of them that is bad. Polling is losing ability to poll the young, which is why so many polls show recent races close and then they end as an obama blowout, but in general they are still accurate of something.
NH is a whole discussion in and of itself.
Looking at consumption from books/newspapers/magazines versus TV/movies/music/video_games paints the nature of the problem with too broad of a stroke. Ostensibly people do gain a little comprehension ability by reading rather than being read to, but that's not really where progress/decline is tied to -- it's the content itself. Written material isn't inherently great (see the typical romance novel, or yellow journalism) and visual/audio material (such as The Daily Show) isn't inherently bad. In fact, things fall on a continuum, but that's beside the point.
If there are reasons that there is a disparity in the quality of content between mainstream written material and mainstream VA material, one may be that the relatively slow pace of reading, compared to listening/watching, forces the author to be more compelling. AV can get by with just keeping attention for a few minutes up to a couple hours, but most books have keep your attention for days.
With respect to TV and to a certain extent music, those involve greater dumbing down simply because they have advertising mixed in.
I suppose another thing getting in the way of seeing more quality AV is that a lot of the talent are getting paid to make the crap.
As for whether people today are dumber today, that's debatable. They are more tolerant than 50 years ago, they question religion more, they juggle more technology... but perhaps there is a divide where some people are falling behind.
You'd think such a critic would see more nuance on such an issue. Oh, the irony..., which is also one of those things that such a nostalgic person ought to appreciate.
I agree with you, Maelstrom. There is a great deal of complexity that Susan Jacoby doesn't account for in this (admittingly concise) article or her interview with Bill Moyers. Fifty years ago most Americans were much more racist (blatently, at least) then now, and racism is something born directly from ignorance. As were they as religiously zealous, anti-Communist, and culturally introspective (though this is based on a large extent due to the geography as it is to the media, I believe.) Were Americans seriously debating the works of Hegel and Marx before they decided on following the Red Scare, or were they debating the rigours of science when flocking to churches? Taking such a diverse topic and painting it black and white it is about as cheap as the 'sound bytes' that she so derides in the article.
Well, she's made her cheap talking point. Hopefully our lust for the newest piece of information will wash her away quickly!
The book by Richard Hofstadter has some seriously anti-democratic messages to it. He criticizes the communists for making their message available to the masses rather than wrapping it up in Hegelian dialectic, and he criticizes progressive schooling for their supposed lack of "rigor" (meaning, apparently, they weren't sufficiently successful at marginalizing intellectual interests falling outside the tradional academy).
Incidentally, I'm not sure I really see the connection between the word "folks" and "anti-intellectualism."
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